Scent Of A Woman And A Man
by Funky In Fishnet
Summary: Stiles and his Mom love perfume. Stiles carries that love into his teenage years and once he and Derek become close, he finds he's not the only one obsessed with scents.


_**Disclaimer:** I own nothing  
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_**Author Notes**: __Last part of the 'Do What I Dare' 'verse, sequel to 'Make No Conditions' and 'Get A Little Outta Line.' So many thanks are due to miya-tenaka for reading and encouraging, and to kaitou_lili who helped me understand perfume making and provided wonderful research support :)_**  
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___**Warning**: Contains cross-dressing and scent-kink.  
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**SCENT OF A WOMAN AND A MAN**

Stiles' Mom was the one who introduced him to perfume. When he started wearing skirts, she told him that he could always use her mirrors, but that it was probably a bad idea for him to borrow her clothes and jewelry. Stiles agreed; his Mom was awesome and really pretty, but her clothes were way too big for him. He wanted something that fitted. So his Mom helped him find stuff in the kids department and when he got a little older, showed him the perfume and make-up counters.

The sales assistant thought they were buying for Stiles' cousin who shared his coloring. Once his Mom heard what suited her son, she made sure to buy him what he needed until he got old enough to do it himself. He chose shops way out of town for those kinds of purchases. There was no gossip like small town gossip, and talk like that could hurt his Dad.

The perfumes though, Stiles had always chosen on his own. His Mom had taken him to thrift stores, where older brands were cheap sold because people didn't want them anymore. The bottles were funny shapes and colors and Stiles was very careful with them because his Mom said that they'd break into thousands of sharp shiny pieces if he dropped them. Stiles sometimes wondered what those fragments would look like, maybe like lots of little rainbows spilled out onto the floor in a puddle of sticky overwhelming scent. He worried that one day he'd drop a bottle, just because he wanted so much to see that picture for real.

The smells were what Stiles liked best. Each one conjured a different image in his mind. His Mom smiled and said that was the idea. She also said he shouldn't use a lot of it all at once, otherwise people would cough and sneeze and stuff. He watched as she sprayed some on her wrists and neck. It took him a few practices to get it right, because the first couple of times he tried, he made Scott cough a lot.

The first perfume Stiles ever fell in love with was by Chanel. He couldn't pronounce the name, but it came in a square bottle and was a really pale gold color. Sometimes, Stiles' eyes looked almost the exact same shade. His Mom said that he had great taste because Chanel was of her favorites and loads of other people loved that brand too. She showed him how to use the bottle stopper to dab the fragrance on his wrist and behind his ears.

When Stiles wore a cream and black dress that night and went to visit Scott, Scott wrinkled his nose and said that Stiles smelled funny. His Mom elbowed him and smiled at Stiles.

"Good choice, Stiles. I love Chanel."

Stiles grinned and wore Chanel a lot after that. Perfume was fun.

His Mom wore a few different perfumes, though her favorite was an old Gucci one. The box was black with cool interlocking gold 'Gs' on the front. Stiles thought it looked like a great puzzle box, like the one he'd found in a market when he and his Mom had gone shopping on vacation. He liked the box better than the perfume.

When his Mom got sick, she wore more perfume. It made Stiles sneeze sometimes, and he couldn't work out why his Mom was doing that when she was the one who'd told him what could happen if somebody wore too much scent. But his Mom smiled tiredly and asked him about school and was that a new shade of nail polish? Stiles curled up carefully on her bed and talked until she went to sleep.

When he woke up, his Dad looked strange, like something was pulling him inside out. He got Stiles downstairs and told him that his Mom was really sick and that one day soon, she might not wake up again. Stiles refused to believe it, his insides feeling colder than ice cream, and he hid in his wardrobe, surrounded by silk and softness and the smell of days out with his Mom, until bedtime.

Several weeks later his Mom was gone and only her scent remained.

Stiles learned to keep his skirts and dresses private; he didn't want his Dad to be isolated any more than he already was. He bought more perfumes though, under the guise of presents for relatives. He watched the colors ripple and arranged the bottles in different formations. Sometimes he thought about knocking them all over and shattering the glass until only rainbow fragments remained, along with the blood on his knuckles.

But then he remembered his Mom's delight at shopping with her son and the perfume stayed whole.

Once the wolves became part of his life, and he was researching a million different things and trying to keep his best friend from causing his own death, Stiles found himself really thinking about the wolves' super-senses. Did what he wore burn their nostrils? He was positive Scott would have said something by now.

Still, he started wearing lighter fragrances – bittersweet fruits, tones of limes and summer berries, and if the scent was floral, he made sure that it was something light and very natural. He wore a lot of vanilla and even found a soap that smelled almost like chocolate. Whatever he wore, he tried to make sure that it wasn't overwhelmingly artificial. Scott took note of how radically Stiles' scent had changed and complimented him on it. Wow.

It was possible, Stiles thought idly one day, that he was a little obsessed with scent. In the same way that he was also fixated on hemlines that showed off his legs and on a certain cut of lace. It just all felt very vital and so close to his bones. Stiles didn't want to let go of that feeling, not now, not ever.

His obsession took an unexpected turn the weekend that he sorted out the boxes in the attic. He'd taken on the difficult job because he needed a distraction from his monster-crush on Derek and from all things wolf. Also his Dad kept making noises about clearing out the attic space and since the idea of his Dad lifting way-too-heavy boxes made Stiles' own heart palpitate, he noisily crawled up into the attic himself before his Dad had the chance to and found recipe cards and perfume and soap-making books. Huh, so that was a thing back in the day. Apparently the Seventies had given birth to all kinds of crazy hobbies. Still, making his own scents sounded awesome. And he did need something to clear his mind of Derek and the wolves.

So he dragged the books downstairs and started reading which led to internet research and something called enfleurage which could produce both perfume and soap. Huh. His Dad found him at the kitchen table, talking wildly about jasmine and could a soap be made that smelled like snickerdoodles? His Dad's eyebrows shot up at the sight of the books but he squeezed Stiles' shoulder and said that soap was a good present to make people. It was what Stiles' Mom had sometimes done.

Stiles thought about it and researched some more and Derek looked confused when he saw perfume and soap books mixed in with werewolf lore texts and other ghoulish delights on Stiles' desk. He didn't ask though, maybe he chalked it up to Stiles' general weirdness, or maybe he was letting Stiles actually keep a secret. The thought of that courtesy made Stiles' insides curl up warmly.

His Dad brought home pamphlets from the local community center – somebody was running a soap-making class. Hey, he could make soap and support the local community. Like regularly saving it from horror movie rip-offs wasn't enough? His Dad pointed out that doing his first soap or perfume making experiment at home wasn't a great idea. For a start, he could destroy the kitchen. Stiles threatened to have his Dad blacklisted at the local diner. No sneaky night-shift burgers for you!

Stiles didn't end up going to the community class but he did get into a surprising conversation with Mrs. Jenkins at the library about the fine art of perfume and soap making. It turned out that she ran quite the enterprise online. Stiles really should be used to people having unexpected hidden depths after the whole werewolves revelation.

"My niece suggested it," Mrs. Jenkins revealed, her pearl-button blouses clearly hiding wicked business sense. "She helped me set up the webpage but I run it myself. It's really quite easy, dear. And so nice to have a little extra coming in to help pay the bills."

Stiles nodded vigorously at that. It was a possibility, right? Probably not a career, but something. He did a lot more research and hired more books out of the library. It turned out that enfleurage could be done hot or cold and according to the message boards he'd been frequenting lately, it was simple to do. Okay, time to put that to the test.

His shopping list that week included a large quantity of cocoa butter and a framed piece of glass. Lydia's eyebrows rose elegantly at the purchases, but when Stiles visited a florist to buy literally buckets of blossoms, her confusion cleared.

"I'll let you know if it doesn't smell terrible," she told him.

Stiles was pretty sure that that was Lydia telling him she was getting one of the first bottles of whatever he produced. He'd been planning on offering her one anyway.

Derek looked even more confused when Stiles smelled like cocoa butter and jasmine flowers at the next pack meeting. Lydia nodded her approval. Stiles grinned; he liked it too. He'd found somewhere fairly cool and dark to keep the saturating fat. Really, the gutted Hale house would be perfect but that wasn't something Stiles was comfortable talking to Derek about. Like, not at all.

He was secretly pleased when Derek didn't complain about Stiles' new smell though. Did the werewolf like it? Or did it remind him of people who'd already been taken from him? Stiles carefully gauged Derek's minute reactions.

The first batch didn't turn out too badly. Nothing caught on fire anyway, which for Stiles was an achievement, though he did spill some of the ethyl alcohol that the fat soaked in. The saturated cocoa butter could be used in soap-making and the carefully strained liquid, after alcohol evaporation, was a great-smelling jasmine absolute. Stiles tried it out on his wrists and bottled up some for Lydia.

When he and Derek became a thing, the werewolf spent a lot more time at Stiles' house. He observed curiously as Stiles pressed fresh lily-of-the-valley blooms into a large quantity of shea butter, and he hovered when Stiles stirred a pan of hot liquid fat and oregano on the stove. Stiles liked the warm breath on his neck and the scrape of Derek's stubble as he crowded closer.

Derek seemed to like the skin bared by Stiles' dark orange top and the hose-clad legs revealed by a brief white skirt. He especially liked the stacked heels that Stiles wore. Stiles still flushed remembering the time that he'd worn nothing but those heels and Derek had fucked him, teeth a little too sharp to be human and a howl brewing in his throat.

One night, while Stiles tied an ivory silk ribbon around the neck of a perfume bottle for Allison, Derek stared at Stiles' cluttered shelves. Stiles raised a quizzical eyebrow in the Alpha's direction.

"Are my dust mites that interesting to you? Is that why your pack lives at the subway station? It must be pretty fascinating…"

Derek's concentration face deepened and he nodded towards something. "That smells different."

His voice was soft and that was the only warning Stiles got before he hopped to his feet to crane a look at what had caught Derek's attention. His heart trembled in his throat when he identified it. There, nestled amongst the store-bought scents and his own homemade stuff, was an old black box adorned with a pair of interlocking gold 'Gs.'

"Yeah, I never wear it," Stiles offered, his voice raw and his skin feeling itchy as he remembered how it had smelled on his Mom.

Derek looked at him, his gaze intensifying, and he nodded slowly. He didn't say any more about it, he just tugged Stiles closer and shared his warmth.

* * *

Derek always seemed most interested in pressing his face against Stiles' neck. It was a werewolf-scent thing. Stiles was fine with that. He liked how one sniff made Derek's eyes a shade redder. He liked the heady power-trip it gave him – he'd done that to Derek, he'd made him a little frayed at the edges. That was awesome.

Stiles twisted around Derek. His make-up was probably smeared but Derek didn't seem to care, his lips travelling all over Stiles' face and neck. Stiles grinned and tilted his head to give Derek a better angle. It felt fucking fantastic.

Derek, of course, zeroed in on his neck. Stiles sighed at the familiar feel of human teeth and an eager mouth. Okay, so maybe he had a thing for Derek attacking his neck. That was hardly surprising considering what Derek did there with such focus and skill. Gah.

Later, when Stiles was rubbing a hand absently over the fresh marks on his neck as he sprawled on his bed and leafed through yet another supernatural research book, Derek's voice broke the sated silence.

"Your scent's strongest there."

Ah, scent again. Stiles wasn't the only one with a scent obsession. That made sense. Wolves relied on their sense of smell. It regularly saved their lives and the lives of their pack members. Of course wolves would prefer certain smells. So did that make Stiles Derek's catnip?

Derek must have seen something in Stiles' smirk because he shoved Stiles over onto his back and started creating a mark on his chest. Stiles' laughter hitched and cracked. Derek was still finding new ways to make him squawk stupid noises.

"It's better when it's both of us," Derek breathed into his skin. "The combination. I want to drown in…"

Stiles surged up to claim Derek's mouth. He could faintly smell orchids and the richness of Derek – mulchy woodland, warm leather, the burritos they'd eaten for dinner. He loved that smell, the Derekness of it. What was Stiles' own scent like? Surely it was forever tinged with Coco Mademoiselle**, **the softness of face powder, and the sticky vividness of lipgloss. Maybe there was more than a hint of his medication, the ancient books he was always paging through now, the school locker room, and Mrs. McCall's tuna casserole.

Maybe a werewolf's sense of smell was good enough to pick out Stiles' Mom still somewhere in there – department stores and cherry tarts and that all important black box with the all-knowing 'Gs.'

It wasn't the sort of thing you could bottle. Stiles had tried. Instead he let Derek claw through his gossamer-fine stockings and feast on the scent he found there. They were both happy to drown.

_-the end_


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